The kind of western influence that certain Indian entertainment industries have been encapsulating has been going up consistently. Be it social media influencers, or stand-up comedians, they have been taking a lot of inspiration from the western creativity.
For the time being, let us keep the discussion surrounding the stand-up comedy activity here. It needs to be noted that several Indian stand-up comedian have been crossing the line with regard to political commentary.
Earlier it was Samay Raina, who faced a significant issue with his YouTube show, which became a sensation and landed him at the court. Then a Telugu YouTube comment theatre named Pradeep Hanumanthu was rightly put behind the bars for his obnoxious comments on pedophilia.
Now we have the case of Telugu stand-up comedian, Anudeep and Rafiq Mohammad, who are both facing the consequences for personally targeting Andhra Pradesh, deputy chief minister, Pawan Kalyan.
It was well within their right to make social commentary or public critique of Pawan Kalyan, but they went out of their way to target him at a personal capacity regarding his divorce and personal life. This had a pretty strong consequence, and both of them are facing Police section now.
In the west, the situation is completely different as the current United States, Donald Trump himself sat in a roast event a few years ago where he was brutally trolled and slammed on stage. This might be an ordinary practice in the western politics, but certainly won’t replicate in India.
India is a largely sensitive country where politicians are very cautious about the public opinion. So, in any kind of disregard to this can immediately land the concerned party in trouble, and that is exactly the case with the stand-up comedians in the country.
